Sign into any social media platform and you're immediately bombarded by endless feeds full of links to news stories, often accompanied by breathless comments or rants, each jostling for a precious sliver of your attention.

Throw in the fact that fake news spreads faster online than the truth and it can be hard to quickly and accurately discern what's real from the hoaxes.

So don't believe everything you read — or see or hear. Here are a few common ways you're getting conned while scrolling through your social media feed.

Out-of-date or out-of-context information

Nearly seven hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every second. Some 95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram every day.

This provides an incredibly rich source of material that can be wrongfully repurposed and quickly become viral.

In our first category, out-of-date or out-of-context content isn't manipulated or edited, but is presented inaccurately.

A Visual Social Media Lab study found about 30 per cent of problematic photos online are actually real photos presented out of context.

For instance, during the Thai cave rescue operation this year, a clip showing a cave diver negotiating extremely narrow twists and turns made the rounds on social media.

Fake victim and perpetrator profiles

After major news events, you may have seen photo collages shared widely on Facebook or Twitter depicting "missing" people, usually accompanied by a post along the lines of "spread the word to find these people".

But some of these are hoaxes, created by people looking for social media fame and shared by well-meaning people looking to help in a crisis.

A 12-year-old Melbourne student was included in one such fake collage of victims after the Manchester Ariana Grande concert bombing, despite being safe at school at the time of the attack.

But Hyde is a comedian. He has never been involved in a mass shooting. Still, trolls on Twitter publish his photo following every gun attack with national coverage.

Pay attention to clues like language, licence plates and road signs to nut out where the photo or video was originally taken.

Be critical of eyewitness accounts posted to social media. They may not be lying but they can be mistaken, or perhaps they only saw part of the incident.

Often after domestic attacks, witnesses will tell police they heard the perpetrator speaking Arabic; in many cases, neither the perpetrator nor the witness understand the language.

There aretools available for people that can readily debunk a fake. A quick reverse image search can tell you if a photo has been used online before, and Snopes has a database dedicated to viral content.

And while not always reliable, you might check what other readers are saying about viral content.

If a tweet attracts a large-enough audience, it will often have rebukes and debunks in replies or comments.

Finally, put more trust in information from news outlets that can confirm claims through official sources — even if they're not completely immune to being fooled too.

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